CHAPTER IX.
THE RETURN OF ACHILLES.
With a fierce delight Achilles gazes on the work of the Olympian armourer, before the dazzling brightness of which even the Myrmidons veil their faces. He sets forth at once for the tents of Agamemnon; and, taking his way along the shore, calls the leaders to battle as he passes each man's galley. The news of his coming spreads fast and far, and every man, from the highest to the lowest, even those who never quitted the ship on any other occasion—
"The steersmen who the vessels' rudders hold,
The very stewards who served the daily bread"—
flock to the central rendezvous to welcome back the champion of the Achæans. He is as impulsive and outspoken in his reconciliation as in his wrath. There is no need of mediation now between himself and Agamemnon. He accosts the king with a noble simplicity:
"Great son of Atreus, what hath been the gain
To thee or me, since heart-consuming strife
Hath fiercely raged between us, for a girl—
Who would to heaven had died by Dian's shafts
That day when from Lyrnessus' captured town
I bore her off, so had not many a Greek
Bitten the bloody dust, by hostile hands
